Sicily, Amalfi, Capri.

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Wednesday 10th May

Today we arrived at Messina in Sicily. Our ship berthed, right in the centre of town, so I was able to get some nice pics from our balcony.
We had signed up for “The Godfather Tour”, which took us out into the countryside, and to a couple of villages where various scenes from The Godfather movies were shot. We will now have to rent all those old movies so we can say “been there”…..
It was lovely to see some of the small villages on Sicily, and we also climbed quite high into the hills, so had a beautiful view of the whole coastline.


Thursday 11th. May

Sailed into Amalfi early in the morning, and anchored just off the coast. Our views of the town were fantastic. We didn’t use the ships tenders today, instead we had to use the local tenders……it was very hairy getting on and off the tenders. There was a big swell, and the tender operators were not as careful as the Seabourn crew…..you almost had to “fall” into the tender. I certainly didn’t enjoy the trip in to shore, or back out to the ship.
Amalfi was extremely crowded with tourists and it isn’t even the “busy” season yet. We just spent some time walking around the town, and drinking coffee in a couple of places, then back to the ship for lunch.

Friday 12th May

Our very last day on the ship, and we went to the Isle of Capri. Again we had to use local tenders, and again the operators were quite dangerous. The tender rose and fell a lot on the swell, and drifted a long way from the boarding platform. Later in the day the tenders also had some of Seabourns crew in them to help the passengers get on and off. Capri was also very crowded, and the queue for the Funicular was a mile long, so we just wandered around near the Port for a while. We priced a taxi and it was quite reasonable for the whole day, 120 Euros, but we didn’t have enough time to be able to get the benefit of it. The taxis were great, nice comfortable seats set up in the back of utilities, like a convertible….would have been good if we’d had more time. Instead we found a ticket office selling tickets for a “Round the island” boat cruise. Cost 11 Euros each and was supposed to be 1.5 hours, but turned out to be about 2 hours. First stop was the Blue Grotto, where a lot from our boat wanted to do the row boat ride into the Grotto. In the row boats you have to sit on the floor, and lie down as the boat goes through the entrance to the Grotto. Not quite my style but they all said it was lovely inside and worth doing……maybe a few years ago!
Next stop was The Emerald Grotto, then The White Grotto…..and a few other areas around the island. It was a great trip.
We had lunch overlooking the harbour, then got the Funicular to the top……didn’t stay there very long……then back to the ship.
Had our final dinner with a couple from San Francisco, and the day before we had ordered Lobster Thermidor. Chef Marcus outdid himself, and the meal was wonderful.

Saturday 13th May

Time to leave…what a sad day….after planning and looking forward to this trip for the last 12 months, it had all come to an end. We had left all our luggage in the hallway the night before, and it had been collected and transferred to a tent near where the buses were parked. At 8.30am our “colour code” was called and we left the ship for the last time. We had to identify our luggage, then some pretty muscly men loaded the bus. I thought our bus was just going to Rome Airport, but as there were 6 couples going to the Hilton at the Airport, we had a bus to ourselves and straight to the hotel! Very good service and well organised.

The Cruise is Over.

Still have a few days in Rome, then a week in Singapore.

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